COMMENTARY: Black 7-Year-Old Genius Invents Mobile Video Game

Zora Ball, a 7-year-old prodigy, is the youngest person to create a mobile video game.

She’s in the first grade – and she’s black.

Zora is a high-tech kid in a high-tech world who is already a serious inventor in a competitive global marketplace.

The brilliant youngster from Philadelphia applied her math skills to design the video game using programming language Bootstrap, which is usually taught to older students — between the ages of 12 and 16 — to help them learn algebra.

Zora’s mobile game was introduced last month during the University of Pennsylvania’s Bootstrap Expo. She attends the Harambee Institute of Science and Technology, a charter school in Philadelphia and she also joins an after-school program called The STEMnasium Learning Academy, which also teaches students Mandarin.

“We expect great things from Zora, as her older brother, Trace Ball, is a past STEM Scholar of the Year,” said Harambee Science Teacher Tariq Al-Nasir, who is also the founder of the STEMnasium Learning Academy.

Zora, a math phenomenon, is also a shining example of what black children can accomplish when offered a quality education and an opportunity to succeed.

There are too many black children in America who are not being nurtured in the public school system, either because there are too many kids in crowded classrooms, or they don’t get the home support they need, or they are overlooked by overworked teachers.